To Him who does immeasurably more than we could ask or even imagine.

Immeasurably. im·measur·a·bly : to an immeasurable degree; beyond measurement; without bounds.

To Him who does Immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to ALL generations forever and ever and ever and ever...and ever. Amen. (Eph. 3:20-21)

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God is working immeasurably in multiple mighty ways. Not even kidding. When I say multiple, I mean multiple.

P.S. We are surviving unbelievably well. Elsa is here with me, I love her to death already. More to come on us later along with words from the Littles. :)

And She's Off!!

Mom just called from D.C.! Her plane is boarding and she is officially on her way back to Ethiopia!!! AHHHHH!! :)

Today our neighbor came over to play for a while and Jeremiah sees him at the door, rushes to open it and quickly told him that Mom had just left on an airplane to go to Ethiopia to see Solomon and he was beyond excited to tell him. Next he told him all about Malaria and the need for mosquito nets in Africa. (We talked about Malaria recently and our sweet boys excitedly volunteered to give their tooth fairy money to buy mosquito nets and they bought about 25 nets!!) Well, our sweet little neighbor child had no clue what Jer was saying and had a look on his face that said "I just asked if you could come outside..."

After playing outside for a while, (we shall call him "Bob") "Bob" breaks out his gameboy and is sitting by himself for a while just playing away. James then walks over and says "Do you know video games make you lazy and turn your brain to mush?" Blunt much, James? :) We love our neighbor, he mostly seems like he loves us too. Most of the time.

My boys bring joy to my soul.

Sweet 16!!!

Yes, yes it's true. I'm now 16.

I gave 3 of my very good friends (and their moms, who happen to be my mom's very good friends which worked out nicely.:) a packing list and a time frame of when I was going to kidnap them. I banged on their back doors dressed like a disturbed madwoman who had a secret desire to be a ninja, and then we drove for four hours up to the Asheville, NC to spend the weekend at the Biltmore Estate! We had soo much fun and I don't think we ever stopped laughing.

(P.S. The Biltmore is an incredible place to visit, we have season passes and LOVE it there. and also...there is this incredible Thai restaurant in Asheville that our long time friends own that is insanely delicious. They put on the Ritz for us and were so sweet. Gahh. Just typing this made me hungry for their deliciousness. )

My sweet birthday letter from Solomon...:) "Hello Ellie Happy birthday. How are you? I am so sorry because I didn’t write for you sooner. The reason for this is I think that you are going to other place for work. My graduation day is September 1. I hope that mom will be with me in that day. I am so happy very much. I love you my dear sister Ellie. Happy Birthday!!!"

Mom leaves for Ethiopia TOMORROW!!! Please keep her in your prayers! I'm so excited for her!

If you like it then you better put a ring on it... or a comment.

Ok, so we are contemplating video journaling every waking moment (or just a few waking moments) of our time without mom as she is leaving for Africa next Saturday!!! I am forcing her to video EVER-EE-THANG because I especially wish I could see Solomon's face when he sees her but I also want to see my favorite place in the world which I miss dearly. And I'm also insanely excited about a lot of things she will be doing.

So I am thinking maybe, maybe... we should do the same. It might not be pretty. Most likely there will be a lot of hilariousness with a hint of crazy and insanity on the side. Maybe too much for you to handle. But if you want to see the madness that will go on, then you better comment. I need at least 5 comments, maybe 12. I don't care if you don't know me. Comment. You can even comment more than once. I don't care. We will be interviewing The Littles (who are quite hilarious as it is) and also letting you glimpse a week of life in a rather child-infested home without mom here. AND we will give updates on Mom as we hear from her. Don't hold back, don't be nervous. Comment.

Sometimes we're crazy.

*Correction*... We're always crazy. (and yes, those would be underwear ^.)

Pondering My Wanderings. Part Uno.

Once upon a time I was flying home from Nashville last summer (2008) from visiting my China girls. I was seated in the exit seat. row. thing. This kid comes a long and sits down. The steward comes, moves him and tells him he's too young to sit there. He was 15. I say, "Excuse me kind sir, I'm not even 15." He doesn't believe me. Finally he moves me next to an elderly Chinese man who's name was Jelly. Or that's what he said. Turns out it wasn't Jelly. It was Jerry. Anyway.

He was an extremely darling little old man and I decided to practice my 12 things I know how to say in Mandarin on him. I started out with a friendly "Ni Hao!" and asked him what his name was...he was super excited. He said.."OHH!! You speak vellllllly good chai-neeee!!!" We carried on a little conversation until I came down to my last three phrases which were.."Can I have a kiss?", "Merry Christmas!" and "Can I hold the baby?"

So. Needless to say. Our conversation ended.

Meanwhile, there was a friendly man behind us who was apparently listening and he says to me..."WOW! ARE YOU IN THE OLYMPICS?!"

Yes sir, I'm so good at saying hello in Chinese they sent me to the Olympics for it. it was that or tell him I'm a gymnast... I'm tiny, it could work.... till he asks me to do a handspring. not gonna happen. ;) He was extremely nice though and it turns out his son was on the Olympic committee and was living in China. The guy ended up being a Christian and our conversation was worth the crick i got in my neck from turning around for an hour and a half.

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So, I was thinking the other day about the fact that I have fallen in a bush in three countries and I think its becoming apparent that I no longer need prayer for "A hedge of protection" More like "Protection from hedges" please. Thanks so much. ................................

Once in Africa, I got asked why I wasn't married. I tried to explain that I was really not old enough to be married in America and the baby I was holding wasn't mine. Sadly, charades wasn't taking the conversation anywhere. (You try explaining that in charades.)

I ran away before he could propose.

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This one time, in China, I was on an overnight train and there was a bug in my bed. I was on the top bunk of a three bed, bunk bed. I almost dove off to my death. It was dark. People heard me shriek from terror and then pant from fear of falling. They laughed at me.

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I was eating pistachios in the back of our bus in China when i found a rotten one. I did the sensible thing and chucked it out the window. Our driver was a very fast walker. He wasn't there and then he was. It hit him on accident and he jumped 5 feet in the air. He then drove like a maniac...

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In Guatemala...I fell out of a tree while getting down. Why were we in a tree? Who knows. It seemed like a good idea.

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Also in Guatemala, I was wearing shoes. and then i wasn't. I still don't know what happened to them. hopefully someone is using them. Shoes. I almost left for the Great Wall of China without shoes on. I was in the bus and we were about to pull out when someone realized they forgot something. I offered to run into the orphanage and get it. I ran through the lobby, out to our yurt and ran back to see three pairs of my shoes in the lobby. "Thats strange" i thought. "I only brought three pairs with me." I keep walking like a doofus and then look down at my feet. Oh thank you sweet Jesus. I wish I could say I have learned my lesson on remembering to wear shoes. But that would be a lie. I left my house without shoes again somewhat recently and it was 45 minutes before i realized i didn't have any on. It was kind of...really, recently actually.

kind of like....today.

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I got stung by a bee on that Oh So Very Great, Wall of the China Place. A freaky bee.

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More to come.

P.S. Click here. My mom is going back to Ethiopia to visit Solomon in TWO WEEKS!!! I'm sooo excited.

Guatemala 2009

Scroll down to bottom of page and pause music player. :)

The Littles' quotes of the week...

• James sits down and plays random notes very seriously on the piano for about 3 minutes and stands up when he finishes, proclaiming "I like to call that..."Hibernating 'aminals' "

• Keren was holding a Cinderella school folder in Wal-Mart, opening and closing it when suddenly the corner pokes her in the eye and she yells "Owwwwww...T-Rella( cinderella) in mine "Oyyyy"(eye)!!"

• Jeremiah walks into the bathroom at our pool, shivers and says "UMM, POLAR BEARS could live in here."

• I ask the boys to go up and get ready for bed...they quickly come back with..

James:"Well!! Mom is upstairs taking a shower and we want to give her quiet time alone with no noise upstairs!" Josiah: "Yea!!" Jeremiah: "Yea! For Mother's Day!"

• Our pool that we are members of has a lazy river and the other day, it was starting to get a little crowded. Josiah sees this, shakes his head and says..."Mom, just look at all those lazy people."

• Jeremiah, James and I were playing a memory game and as Jeremiah is winning, he chuckles and says "I wundo how God made me so smart..."

• Jeremiah told me a story about an ant the other day that was walking through our house with a chip on his back and according to Jer, the ant was teasing the other ants saying "Ha, ha I have a chip and you don't! I have a chip...ha..ha." and then Jer says..." So then I squished him!! and he said "ohhh..i guess I can't tease anymore!"

(This cute picture was taken by the lovely Rachel.)

• Keren's trademark term is "Aww!! How T-yoot!!!" which translated means, "How Cute." and she says it about babies and little cute animals or baby anything's. Its her favorite thing to say. She can't say it with out shrugging her shoulders up, squinting her eyes and clasping her hands. It's precious.

• The boys are observing the bees in their beloved sunflower garden:

They really don't like bees and wasps. They were talking with mom about the ones on the flowers and were talking about killing them before they could sting them. Mom: "No, we don't need to kill them, we need to leave them alone. They are doing the job that God gave them to do, we need to leave them alone and they won't hurt us." James: "Yea, just like the Bible says..." We need to love our enemies." " The bees, being our enemies in this case. :)

These kids are precious and hysterical and I love them more than water and chocolate and cucumbers and hammocks and the beach and all of my favorite things here on earth. They are my favorites.

For the record, this picture was not staged. They love to walk like this. This is them walking through the zoo...oh what a fun adventure it was. We were quite at home with the monkeys. :)

Boot Camp '09

I just got back from Boot Camp. I am joining the Army. HA. Big joke. Several people fell for it but yea, umm I'm a little girly for the military. I just got back from BIBLE Boot Camp in Chattanooga, TN with Precept Upon Precept Ministries. If you have never heard of Precepts, I HIGHLY recommend you check them out. They use the "Inductive method" of studying the Bible, where you basically take a passage and dissect it to get the full meaning of what the text means. It is AMAZING. My family and I joined a Precepts Bible Study group in our area about 2 or 3 years ago and love it. They really teach you how to study the Bible on your own.

Anyway, I just spent an amazing, life changing week in Tennessee at their boot camp. It is a week long camp where you study God's word in-depth, see God in new ways and meet incredible people. We were studying the sermon on the mount in Matthew, Chapters 5-7 and it was incredible. God showed me so many things through His word that I never saw just by reading over the passages we studied for a week and I still feel like there is so much more we could have studied in those chapters than we actually covered. Boot Camp is soooo much fun and altogether awesome. If you are in high-school, I want to strongly, strongly urge you to come to boot camp next year. It will change your life. They are having a conference in December that looks amazing and it is basically a mini boot camp. I don't know if I am going to that yet but I am reallllly hoping to be back at boot camp next summer.

Seriously. It is so important that we know what we believe and not just what people tell us is true about God. The statistics of how many young people walk away from what they believe in college is staggering and all together heart breaking. It is SO important that we know truth for ourselves and are ready to make a defense for our faith and the only way to do that is to know God's word and what He says about Himself. Precepts is incredible and they have a passion to train young people to know God's word and I really hope that you will get involved with Precepts in your area! Please email me if you have any questions about them or how to get involved! elliemestas@gmail.com or just add me on facebook! :)

Jesus loves me this I know.

Alex is amazing. He called me "Ellie!!! Mi Amiga!!!" and would run and hug me every time we saw each other. He came up to me one day and whispered in my ear "Camorones sin colas" with a lisp...so it came out..."Camaroneth theen colah-thh." It means...shrimp with out tails. I have no idea what he meant by it but was pretty darn cute.

On our last day I hugged him and told him in Spanish that Jesus loves him and he squeezed me and then looked up at me so very serious and in his cute little lispy Spanish told me that Jesus loved me too. I've never seen a little child so sure of Jesus' love and Jesus's love for someone else at that. I was blown away and overcome with emotion. I never ever expected him to come out and say that. I was holding him and he had his arms around my neck and when I told him, he lifted up his little head, stared into my eyes and just said it. "Yes, I know he does...and Jesus loves you too." and he laid his head back down and squeezed me tighter.

Jesus is there and He is real. He is the Father to the Fatherless and His love is ever present with them. His love is alive and is working in the children of Agua Viva. I will never forget that special moment with Alex. God has taught me so much through this little boy and his life and I can not imagine having never met this child. It was so humbling to be reminded of my Savior's love for me by a little child in such tragic circumstances. I have thought back to that moment so many times since I have been home and am having a rough day or am struggling with something. Jesus loves me. Not because of anything I did for Him or could ever do for Him, but just because He wanted to. I love Him because He loved me first. I went to Guatemala expecting to do some yard work, paint some buildings and play with a few kids and it was so much more than that. I saw God in the waterfalls, in the sunsets, in the mountains, in the villages, in the faces of laughing children...everywhere. I was reminded of Christ's love in extraordinary ways. Jesus loves Alex and He loves me and I am forever grateful.